According to investigators, the child’s throat was cut from one side to the other and he had multiple lacerations to the throat. Officials said he also had a possible crushed chest and severe head injury.

Police said the boy’s mother, 45-year-old Daphne Spurlock, stomped on her child’s chest and face. She told investigators she was attempting to release the demons from his body.

Authorities said Spurlock then used a large kitchen knife to cut her son’s throat and she stabbed him in the facial area multiple times as he lay helpless on the floor.

A born-again Christian, Daphne Spurlock would never have harmed her son on her own, her husband said.

Spurlock, 59, said he wasn’t at home when his wife allegedly harmed their only child sometime around midnight Saturday.

“I wish I would have been there and it wouldn’t have happened,” he said.

Although questioned by Magnolia police, the father said he was not involved in the incident and was still trying to understand what happened.

“I can’t put it together yet,” he said by phone from Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, where his son was in critical condition after undergoing surgery.

“We are investigating an alleged abuse of a child,” Carter said Saturday morning. “Our understanding is there are no other children in the home. It doesn’t look like we’ve ever had any contact with the family.”